102 HISTORr of the SOCIETY 



§!&!»* kind with refpect to beauty, may naturally be fuppofed to have 

 availed himfelf of every opportuuity which a foreign country 

 afforded him of illuftrating his former theories. 



Some of his peculiar notions, too, with refpect to the 

 imitative arts, feem to have been much confirmed by his ob- 

 fervations while abroad. In accounting for the pleafure we 

 receive from thefe arts, it had early occurred to him as a fun- 

 damental principle, that a very great part of it arifes from the 

 difficulty of the imitation ; a principle which was probably 

 fuggefted to him by that of the dijjiculte furmontee, by which 

 fome French critics had attempted to explain the effect of ver- 

 ification and of rhyme *. This principle Mr Smith pufhed 

 to the greateft poffible length, and referred to it, with An- 

 gular ingenuity, a great variety of phenomena in all the dif- 

 ferent fine arts. It led him, however, to fome conclufions, 

 which appear, at firft view at lead, not a little paradoxical ; 

 and I cannot help thinking, that it warped his judgment in 

 many of the opinions which he was accuflomed to give on the 

 fubject of poetry. 



The principles of dramatic compofition had more particu- 

 larly attracted his attention ; and the hiftory of the theatre, 

 both in ancient and modern times, had furnifhed him with 

 fome of the moft remarkable facts on which his theory of the 

 imitative arts was founded. From this theory it feemed to fol- 

 low as a confequence, that the fame circumftances which, in 

 tragedy, give to blank verfe an advantage over profe, mould 

 give to rhyme an advantage over blank verfe ; and Mr Smith 

 had always inclined to that opinion. Nay, he had gone fo far as 

 to extend the fame doctrine to comedy ; and to regret, that thofe 

 excellent pictures of life and manners which the Englifh ftage af- 

 fords, had not been executed after the model of the French 

 fchool. The admiration with which he regarded the great dra- 

 matic authors of France tended to confirm him in thefe opi- 

 nions ; 



* See the Preface to Voltaire's Oedipe, Edit, of 1729. 



